The year in reflection

Two years ago I was hit by a truck and my life changed. The first year was all about pain: learning to manage it, expecting it, dealing with it day to day. This past year was an attempt to not be about pain anymore and I met with both success and failure. There were mitigating circumstances stemming from the most basic tenet of the human condition, which is that people suck.

Today I almost lost my temper at someone young and naive but caught my wits before I made an ass of myself and a stain out of them. A kid, just a 20 year old child, thought that it was Ok to poke fun at me. I kept composure and played it off. After all, he's just a simple, 20 year-old gay boy. As I recall, most of the gay friends I had when I was 20 were too consumed with themselves to watch their mouths. I remember my friend Micheal made the mistake of mocking Jon Ritter the day he died. I got angry then, and he realized his mistake.

The past two years, from then until now, have been a long and tedious process. My friends now have no idea the kind of monster I used to be. I was working two jobs, taking 16 hours of grad classes a semester, running off of gasoline and adrenaline. In a single week, I wrote over 70 pages of lab reports with illustrations, wrote a 25 page philosophy paper (that I got an A on), drove SOUTH of Miami to pick up my motorcycle, spent 18 hours to-in-and-from my motorcycle course, went to GA Tech for a robotics think-tank with Microsoft, and caught my flight to Alaska to visit my parents. I slept, maybe 15-20 hours total that week, but I got it done, and I got FIVE A's that semester.

Less than four months later I was run down by a for F-150 and I went from 100mph to zero so fast that it didn't seem like reality. Friends vanished. I was immobile. My prognosis was "Let's hope you can walk without a cane." That's the short version. The long version was a $30,000 surgery, titanium, leg braces of all shapes and sizes, five months on crutches, and almost a solid year of physical therapy. I got my surgery, my bike was wrecked, I couldn't walk, I was peeing into empty orange juice jugs, constantly hungry and in pain, and it was a battle to survive just to get food or to make it to the bathroom every two or three days to clean up and resupply my meals, which were primarily cans of tuna and nutragrain bars.

That was how I spent the summer of 2007. Alone. Rehabilitating. So doped up on pain medication that I couldn't concentrate on any given task for more than 20 minutes.

Getting your knee pulverized is an interesting sensation, though. I must say. I'd never broken a bone before. Feeling bones knit back together was strange.

People were scared by my accident. It freaked them out. I made people uncomfortable. I was even asked to NOT go on a trip to Texas to visit a friend of mine. Funny how you become ostracized because your misfortune makes everyone else uncomfortable. That's probably why I bonded so much with the folks at my Physical Therapy clinic. They were used to seeing beaten up and injurred people. They still smiled when I came in. I can't even count the number of friends I lost when I had my accident. Maybe I can count the number of Facebook wall posts I got when it happened. Cuz YA. Those were reassuring.

Not all the blame was on others. I honestly don't think I wanted to be seen. I used to be the guy people called when a refrigerator needed to go up a flight of stairs. Not so much anymore with a lot of metal where all my cartelage used to be.

During my "bed rest" I lost about 25 lbs. I hadn't been down in the 170's since I was in highschool. The crutches did wonders for my triceps. And the story of "Ya, so I got run over by a truck when I was on my motorcycle" was pretty bad-ass. Then there was the $500,000 settlement my lawyer worked out for me. He took a third. I bought a new car. I built a disgustingly expensive computer. And I finally got a cat. I'd always wanted a cat.

Hell. I also got a girlfriend. My first real attempt at a meaningful relationship that would last longer than any other. I should have been more selective. Just because someone shows interest in you doesn't mean you should offer yourself up as everything she ever asked for. I was just trying to make it work. I wanted to be happy. But her motivations are now and forever will be unknown to me, and the only thing I am certain of is her selfishness. The worst thing I could have done was throw money at the problem by buying her whatever she wanted, but it didn't stop me.

I got up to use the bathroom just now and relinguish maybe 3 of the last 8 beers I've had. Yes, I've been drinking heavily. I wasn't sure if I've been drinking to enjoy tonight or to avoid NOT enjoying tonight. My reflection in the mirror is horrible. I need a shower, a shave, and a lot of sleep.

In the last year, I've lost a house, friends/roommates. I moved. I got robbed. I lost my girlfriend. Classes are a pain in the ass. I smile for people who condescend to me like I'm an idiot. I may not be the best linguist or be very well read, but at least I don't live in a paperbag world that one good storm could weaken and tear through. But hey, what can you do? We live in a society that breeds narcissism. EVERYONE is special, didn't you know that?

When I come home to my little white house and my little black cat and there's nothing but the humming of computer case fans and wind chimes on my porch, I know, in the deepest and darkest alleys of my mind that I ought not put on the show of a simplistic, square individual of basic drive and mannerisms. But I do so anyway because it's easier than operating at full capacity all day long. It's easier than calling people out for their idiocy, hypocricy, and inconsistent thoughts. What holds me back? What keeps me grounded? That's easy. I'm scared to death to think for a moment that I'm better than anyone else. I know without a doubt that I come off as very elitist and condescending if I'm just reacting. But I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be an asshole. I'm no better than anybody else.

I really do look horrible right now. My eyes are red as hell because my allergies are flairing and I haven't been sleeping. And my left eye has been twitching for a few weeks now. Don't know if that's stress or pollen.

I've got school bearing down on me like a freight train. Two of my suggested paper topics for Historical Linguistics were shot down. A topic was given to me, but it's going to end up being a paper on Language Variations, and not historical linguistics. Ask me about pidgeons and creoles having been taught by Dr. Kretzschmar? You may not like the answer, Dr. Klein.

My motorcycle is still in the shop. Fuel leak. Rear tire. Front break pads. Coolant line. They've had it for a week. I wish I could have had it to ride today of all days. Not like it mattered. I was beaten into an in-class presentation that I had to shave from 20 minutes to 15, skipping four important slides, which was directly followed by the frustration of not being able to add a computer to our lab workgroup and three hours of Historical Linguistics. My eyes were hurting as bad then as they do now.

Where do I go from here? The summer. A thesis. Another year. PhD applications. Putting myself out there, risking rejection. I need to publish more. Go to conferences. Complete the half-dozen side projects I've shelved. Study for my orals. Defend. Graduate. Move away. Start over. Me, a little black cat, and a big black motorcycle.

Sometimes I stop and look at my age and wonder why I never had fantasies of being a poet or a musician or a writer or SOMETHING other than a puzzle solver. Probably has a lot to do with the accolades I got when I was a kid and solved math problems faster than anyone else in my class. That kind of special acknowledgement, the gratification from teachers and classmates is hard to give up. It's addictive. Losing it sucks. Getting it back is alright, but being aware of it makes you think of what you missed out on.

I fear I've written a book in my drunken haze. I really ought to continue with my plan for the evening which was more beer and a couple Kevin Smith films, hopefully passing out somewhere in the middle of either Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back or Clerks II. Odds are I won't remember a lot of what I said here because judging by the sliver of a scroll bar I have there, I've said A LOT. I wonder how much of this I'll enjoy reading tomorrow and how much of it will make me depressed or mad or regret writing it at all. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.